Secondary Research - Design Inspiration

Follow Charlotte Barnard Design Inspiration on Pinterest To see the full annotation and pins click on See on Pinterest  All annotations are my own. 

Learning How to Use Pinterest

Here demonstrates my new skill of being able to use Pinterest, which will now allow me to illustrate my design and style direction. I like how it is a mood board yet it can still be annotated so I can explain what parts of the image I like and dislike.

Primary Research - Audience Profile

Primary Research - Audience Profile

Learning How to Use Windows Movie Maker

Here I have learnt the basics of Movie Maker such as adding effects, transitions and images. This will assist me in the future to making videos aimed at portraying information.

Learning How to use SlideShare

Above is a progression of me using SlideShare. Through learning how to use SlideShare I can now present Word and PowerPoint documents online whilst keeping their format and design. 

Survey Three Results

Learning how to use Prezi

Here demonstrates all the different skills I have picked up through learning Prezi, I have learnt a variety of skills such as how to embed videos, add symbols and how to add diagrams within the presentation, all of which are a lot more interactive and interesting ways to present information, a whole lot more interesting than using slideshows such as PowerPoint. Through learning to use Prezi my audience will be a whole lot more engaged in the information I am presenting them with.

Third Survey

My third survey focused more on the VAL's (values, attitudes and lifestyles) of my possible reader, I asked typical questions such as what are your hobbies or do you have a job, this is so I can know information about my audiences habits and behaviour therefore I can tailor my magazine to suit them thus attracting the demographic to become readers. I will also be able to use their interests for magazine competitions and adverts but I can also take inspiration for my design for example colours or whether to go for a linear or curvy layout. 

 

 

Survey Two Results

Second Survey

Looking at my first survey I feel that some questions needed more detail or I missed some out so I created another two surveys which answered all the questions I wanted an answer to.

I asked the normal What is your gender and age? So I could see a pattern, e.g whether a younger age range would go to live music over the older market. I followed this with a comment box asking why, whether they didn't want to or if it was a factor of money this would have a huge effect on my magazine as whether to feature live music articles, offers on discounts for tickets and even affect the price of my magazine as if they don't have much money I can't charge too much otherwise no one would read my magazine. I then asked how interested they would be on a scale of one to ten in reading a music magazine, this would give me an idea of the age range to aim my music magazine at, I also then went on to ask why did they pick this number so I could find out any flaws within the music magazine industry and use this in my magazine to gain readers. Finally due to me not giving a I don't read music magazines option this made the last question on this survey gave inaccurate answers on my last survey so therefore this time I will find out valid results to report on. I will then look at elements of the popular music magazines within age ranges and find out what elements they have that could inspire my design.

 

Primary Research - audience

Survey Results and Analysis

My Survey

Using Social Media to Gather Responses for my Questionnaire

I use social networking sites regularly to connect with friends and to see any major events. Yet I was new to using these sites as a way to increase responses and make my data more accurate.

I was given a link by SurveyMonkey which I used to give people a direct route to my questionnaire to add time efficiency and ease for the people answering it to ensure them that this would be a quick and easy process.

Tumblr

I added a link to my blog on Tumblr so it would appear in peoples feeds who followed me on this site. It also appears at the top of my blog so when people visit that site then they come across the link which hopefully brings people in to answer it. I added tags which means that when someone searches that tag they can come across my post and hopefully cause them to answer my survey. This broadens my audience as my friends and followers can enjoy the same things and share the same characteristics, by adding labels I broaden the people answering it as they won't be influenced or share the same personality that would be within a group of people. Most of my followers on Tumblr are into the same music and artists as my blog has a specified genre of music, so results from this group of people could be very similar.

Twitter

I then used Twitter to broadcast my survey, by having a simple short tweet and a link. I have kept it brief as the whole aim of Twitter is that statuses and other social networking is kept short and brief. I didn't add any tags as there was not enough characters to add them, but I feel that if I did add tags then it would clutter my tweet and make it look complicated therefore unappealing and a bit like spam.

Facebook

I then went to Facebook to broadcast my survey. I put the link in with my description which I put as a status. I put it as a status as it is the one way that the majority of Facebook use to communicate, it is simple and short which makes it look like the survey is simple therefore looking more attractive to answer.

Instagram 

I then used Instagram to also promote my survey. I took a simple picture of a postcard saying smile and then added a filter, using a real picture will interest my audience and look less like spam which is generally avoided by the majority amount of social media users. I added tags so more people could access my survey which meant a wide amount of different people could put in their input meaning that I get more accurate results as like Tumblr I could have followers that share the same interests as I post very similar pictures so this could make my survey inaccurate or unreliable.

Overall looking at the type of language that I used it was informal as all these social networking sites are full off informal lexis. If I was to use formal lexis then it might alienate my audience and make them not want to answer my survey. If I used formal lexis it might look like I didn't post the survey and that I had been hacked or have spam this would make my audience avoid answering the questionnaire.

Looking at how I used social media to broadcast my survey to gain more answers looks exactly the same to how I post normally but I have learnt that you shouldn't always be formal when you ask for something to be done that is more sophisticated than gossip or friendships as this can create a barrier between you and the people you want to reach.

Learning how to use Survey Monkey

To gather my audience research and to get a wide and accurate representation of my target audience to be able to produce a valuable product design that would appeal and achieve its purpose I used the online site SurveyMonkey. I had never used SurveyMonkey before so I have gathered and developed skills that before I had never acquired before.

I first had to decide the name of my music magazine and decide the category of my survey. As my survey is for my music magazine I have put it under the category of 'Market Research', I decided against placing it under 'Education' as it may affect my results if people know that it isn't for a real product free for the public to use. I called it 'Music Magazine Survey' because it is straight forward and might appeal people to answer it as it conveys as a very simplistic survey which would be completed quickly. 

I then get to design the layout of my survey. I got to decide the boldness of the title and the colours that were in the survey. This is important as it has to look visually appealing as some people might not fill it out due to it not looking visually appealing.

I then started to add questions. SurveyMonkey produced some suggestions so I used them, this then set up the answers, I added an 'other' which gives them a chance to disclose this information or suggest other genders that they are. I made this question compulsory to answer as it is key to being able to categorize my results. I only gave a certain number of characters if they specified 'other' as this restricts them to giving unhelpful answers, although they still can it is harder for them to as I have restricted the characters.

   

I then came across another problem. Due to me only having a free basic account there is a limit on questions. I then had to incorporate some questions into one another for me to get all the data I required, for example two questions I had was 1. What is your gender and 2. What is your age, I then made these two questions into one by increasing the categories (e.g male 13 or below, female 14-16) that they could answer. I also had to eliminate questions which weren't going to give me the exact answers I needed, one of the questions I removed was 'how often do you log onto social networking' I did this as I felt that a previous question 'what social networking sites do you use' gave me a similar answer and that me not knowing the amount of times a person logs on to a social media site is less important than knowing what music magazine they currently read.